The original Viva Piñata was an interesting take on the sandbox genre – although the game seemed to be geared to kids since it was based on the FOX TV show, the fact that you were creating piñatas by having brothers and sisters mate was a little…odd. Weird mating habits aside the game either did well enough to warrant a sequel or Microsoft didn’t want to give up on the franchise and so they created Viva Piñata Party Animals. This game has the same characters from the original, but no mating whatsoever (yay!).
Perhaps it was the success of all those wonderful casual games on the Wii that Microsoft decided to try to develop a library of these types of games on the 360. Unfortunately, this game is devoid of fun, even for kids. Instead of a quick, fun pick me up sort of game, Party Animals is agonizingly frustrating: the standard mode is a series of mini games where you’ll place 1st to 4th; of course the first place winner gets the most points. These mini games go on and on and on. Take my advice and make sure you play a short game just so you don’t go insane. If my kids want to play a quick mini game, the set shouldn’t take longer than a 9 inning baseball game. Okay, maybe that’s an exaggeration – it just feels like it takes that long. The basic genres of the mini games are “smashing,” “smash & collect,” “rhythm,” and “reflexes, “and racing.
The races do not have the kind of fun that you’d expect from a Mario Kart type of game – instead you’ll have control frustration and think that your controller has been dipped in molasses at the lack of response time your piñata has to run around the course. Yes, the power ups are all there and you can even jump, but still it isn’t fun and there’s no strategy required; just hit the power ups as you go.
All of the games at their core are rehashes of other games – quick, guess what you have to do in a rhythm game. None of the mini games are better than anything you’ve played before. One mini game is a blatant rip off of Brain Age where you have to figure out how many piñatas are hiding behind scenery – you’ll see some enter the stage and some leave the stage. The only difference is you know the number is between one and four because you have to hit the button to correspond with the number! If you’ve played Fuzion Frenzy, some of the mini games are basically that with Piñatas. Have you decided to run out to the store yet?
What’s good about the game? Well the graphics are very nice looking and could have come straight out of the TV show. The music is so annoying that you’ll remember the theme song, even though you’ll probably wish you hadn’t. The voices are cute and doing the countdown before a minigame starts in different languages is a nice touch.
I’d love to tell you about the online play, but I could not get into one game – ranked or unranked. Granted with the game geared to a younger audience, it’s probably not best to attempt to play online in the late evening. The manual goes into quite a bit of detail about how to set up a LIVE account for a child, almost making you wonder if the whole purpose of the game was to get your child online.
The concept behind the game is cute – a reality TV game show; it’s just too bad the games are so boring, even for kids. As a focus group test my seven and ten year old kids who enjoy the TV show played the game and had more interest in Acme Assault Looney Tunes which should tell you something.
Overall, Viva Piñata Party Animals is a pretty big disappointment – the only fun there is to be had for adults are the GamerScore points, while kids didn’t enjoy the game either and would rather hit the Wii for some casual gaming. Even if your kids like the series, this is a tough game to recommend.
